365 Days of Art: Create a new species of animal

006. Create a new species of animal.

This is a strange little creature I drew/painted (and tidied up slightly in Photoshop) for the 365 Days of Art challenge, this time for number 6: "Create a new species of animal". This is the Flying Long-tongued Lizard Catcher, an amphibious creature that swims when in the water, walks on two legs when on land, and uses its wings to either fly through the air or to propel itself through the water.

It predominantly eats small lizards, fish, and large insects. When on land, it catches its prey by swooping down from the air and using sticky secretions on its legs to trap them. When in the water, it flattens the bulk of its body against the sea bed and buries itself under the sand, It then uses the lure on its head to draw fish towards it before grabbing them with its long tongue.

365 Days of Art: A musician

180. A musician

Today brings another picture for the 365 Days of Art challenge! Originally, this picture wasn't going to be for the "challenge", as my initial intention was just to draw it as a surprise for my wonderful friend Rina (she blogs over at Kreativ - take a look! :D). However, since it's a picture of her favourite musician, Közi (solo, ZIZ / XA-VAT / Eve of Destiny / MALICE MIZER etc.), I decided to include it here as well!

365 Days of Art: I don't know you...

205. I don't know you...

This is the latest picture for the 365 Days of Art challenge, number 205: "I don't know you...". I started it quite a while ago, but forgot about it for months. Today, I finally got around to finishing it!

365 Days of Art: An Original Character (with Back Story)

109. An original character (Zaichik)

Well, well, well, another 365 Days of Art entry! I had intended to post this one ages ago but didn't get around to it until now (I finished it back in June/July).

This time it's number 109: An Original Character (with Back Story). There's actually several drawings for him (and one of his sister too, who I've also included in the backstory) because I'm trying to make a short 3D animation at the moment, with the help of a friend of mine, and both he and his sister are in it. This character's name is Zaichik and I made him up around 4 years ago (though I'd never drawn him until this year). The rest may get a little long, so everything else is below, after the cut. Apologies if this becomes rambling and overly detailed...

365 Days of Art: Collaboration Art

287. Collaboration Art

Although the deadline of November 29th, which I set for myself, has already passed I'm still continuing to create pictures based around themes from my 365 Days of Art list. Today's image is based around theme number 287 - "Collaboration Art". My very creative friend Kei and I used this stock photo by Fernando Cortes as a reference image, split it into ten sections and each drew five of them.

The image below shows which sections we each did (Kei did the yellow areas, I did the green):

We didn't see each other's sections until they were all finished and we didn't know which colours or styles the other was going to use either. It was fun to work on and I think the end result looks pretty good! :)

Creepy Crawly Spooky Fun

This year's jack-o'-lanterns

You may be wondering why a photo jack-o'-lanterns is appearing in November. Sadly, the truth is that I simply didn't get around to posting about this until now. Plus, I rather like pumpkins all year round.

Anyway, the two disasters above were the result of my niece and nephew staying with me (as they have done for the past couple of Halloweens), them drawing the faces on and me having a "knife accident". Twice. Still, it adds to their...charm and character, I suppose? Heh. Last year's were much better and, since I didn't post those here at the time, here they are now:

The ones I carved myself

Together with the ones my friend did

Apart from carving jack-o'-lanterns, we also spent Halloween (daytime) at Optimus Halloween Horror Convention. My niece & nephew dressed as a skeleton and a mummy, respectively, for the day and various other attendees were wearing costumes as well. However, I just went in my regular clothes.

Me,

The corset in the picture is way too big for me, but I love the Universal Monsters print on it so much that I can't bear to part with it! 

The Optimus event itself was enjoyable and there were various things to keep us entertained. My personal favourites were the horror walkthrough, the Alien display (when we went to this, one of the guys manning it was dressed like Ash from The Evil Dead; complete with a chainsaw hand, haha), and the animal holding area (there were snakes, bearded dragons, tarantulas etc).

Mexican black kingsnake

Chilean rose tarantula

The giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.

The Alien film series display.

Horror walkthrough: Jason Voorhees from Friday 13th.

HW: Zoom
He'd turn to stare at you as you walked away,
lurking in the bushes, haha.

HW: This actor changed their reactions depending on what you did.
If you stared, they'd point, if you took a picture, they'd cover their face and
lie down before getting up and posing for the photo again.

HW: Pyramid Head from Silent Hill.
Along with Jason, this was probably my favourite in the HW.

In the evening, I decided to make dinner a little bit more spooky by making jacket potato spiders:

After that, my niece & nephew went out trick or treating, whilst I stayed to give out the candy! 

Birthday Babble

Vegan birthday cake

It was my birthday on September 29th and, although I didn't do anything out of the ordinary for it, I still had a fun day!

The picture above is of a my birthday cake, which was of the dark chocolate variety. I'm not usually a fan of cake, but my mother made that one for me and it was both vegan and had a third of the sugar of usual cake recipes, so this one was nice! (Of course, my housemate and my mother also enjoyed eating it too, haha). 

As well as the delicious cake, my mother also gave me these fantastic presents:

"Fangs" the bat and some make-up

Very pleased to have them! ♥

As I mentioned in this post, my housemate already gave me one of my presents early, but on my birthday he also surprised me with Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection too!

This collection includes:
Metal Gear
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Plus:
Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel
Metal Gear Solid 2: Digital Graphic Novel

I didn't have this collection before, only the original games, so this was a great gift! :D

Also, lots of other lovely people took the time to wish me happy birthday and a friend from Germany even sang 'Happy Birthday' in a video to me, which made me smile! I also received other creative presents this year as well! 

'Floating Under a Full Moon' by Kei

Firstly, Kei drew me a picture of two of my favourite characters: Clear (Dramatical Murder) and Tretij Rebenok (MGS V: The Phantom Pain. AKA Psycho Mantis, from MGS/MGS4, when he was a kid). What can I say? My tastes in VN/games are somewhat varied, but in the end, I guess I just like characters in gas masks or something. Haha. Anyway, I am really grateful for this present, as it must have taken a lot of time and effort. Especially considering that she doesn't even play the MGS series at all and didn't really know what Tretij Rebenok looked like before attempting this. I think it came out wonderfully! :D

The next creative present that was given to me was from my friend Joseph, who made an animated video for the intro of a song called 'Innocence and the Angel'. The song is by a music project that another friend and I used to do (we're taking a break from it at the moment), so it had more of a personal meaning.  

Innocence & the Angel - opening from Joseph L. on Vimeo. Again, the amount of time and effort that went into this present astounds me and I'm really thankful that he took the time to make it for me. I love it! ♥

I spent the rest of my birthday with my lovely housemate watching cheesy horror/sci-fi films, laughing at silly things, and playing MGSV:TPP. Honestly, it was a wonderful day/night!

The Moors and The Moon

With my friend on Dartmoor

As I'm sure everyone is already aware, September 28th (UK time) was both a super Harvest moon and a total lunar eclipse, which are event that won't occur again together for another 30 years! Due to this, my friend, my mother and I decided to spend the early hours of the morning out on Dartmoor, where there is very little light pollution and hardly any buildings to obstruct the view. 

Mist particles swirling in the wind.

We got there at around 1am and, although it was rather overcast, the wind was whipping the clouds and mist about rapidly enough that it was still possible to view the eclipse.

My friend is dazed by the flash, whilst I gaze at the Moon.

At around 2:30am, the temperature began to drop and so my mother and my friend went to find a sheltered spot to make some soup to keep us warm, whilst I looked after our things. 

Although I have to admit that I did get a little bit distracted and went clambering around on some rocks  in the dark for a while! It was so peaceful sitting up there.

These are higher than they seem.

4:30am approached and it was time to leave, so we packed up and headed back. However, we did stop along the way to have one last look at the Moon and I managed to take one, very poor photograph of it in its rusty, hidden state:

The Super Harvest Moon Eclipse.

However, I wasn't too disappointed, because I got to see it with my eyes and had a wonderful night as well. There are some stunning photographs and time-lapse videos available elsewhere online though, should you want to see them! ;D

365 Days of Art: Surprise gift art for someone

5. Surprise gift art for someone.

I've been very sporadic with my 365 Days of Art posts haven't I? You'd think that with all the time that's passed I'd have created a large collection of pictures to post here by now, but no. In reality, I've completed about 30 pictures since January and not all of them were for this challenge. As for the challenge as a whole, only 26 of 365 have been completed and the deadline is the end of November - oops! Well, there's still time, haha! ;D

Anyway, this particular picture was for 5. Surprise gift art for someone. It's a crossover drawing of the characters Saiko Yonebayashi (Tokyo Ghoul) and Lucifer/Hanzou Urushihara (Hataraku Maou-sama!) that I did for my friend Kei after she posted about wanting to see something with the two of them together. Admittedly, she did know I was drawing something for her, but she didn't know what, so I'm still going to count this as a surprise (even if counting it as "art" is a little bit dubious)!

An Unexpectedly Noizy Present

Noiz is distressed...maybe

This morning, my best friend/housemate put a box wrapped in dinosaur-themed paper next to me and motioned for me to open it. As it's my birthday quite soon I wondered if he'd simply gotten the dates mixed up. He told me that since he'd had his present early, that he wanted me to have mine early too and so, naturally, opening commenced! Haha. Inside the box I found...

Vintage & Retro Fair and a Detour to a Burlesque Shop (with Bonus Dinosaurs)

On Saturday there was a vintage and retro fair held in Torquay town hall, so I decided to go along with a friend of mine and check it out, since the one at Torre Abbey had been enjoyable! There were lots of stalls selling items mainly from eras ranging from the 1920s - 1960's, though some were a little older and some were a little newer. 

Some vintage magazine covers for Pan and Pearls Soap adverts on one of the stalls caught my eye, but, ultimately, I didn't end up buying them. I did, however, purchase two rather lovely items, for even lovelier prices.

A necklace with two flies and a beetle.

The above necklace is approximately 5.5 inches (14cm) across, really unusual and so detailed!  The bodies of the flies are covered in a thick, textured fabric, but everything else is either molded or done in enamel effect. Perhaps it's not to everyone's taste, but I love things like this and am also very fond of insects, so it was a great find for £2.50! 

The other item I bought was the brooch below, which is about 1.5 inches (3.8cm) across and is a beautiful deep red colour. It was £1.50 and is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for to go with a ring I have.

Apparently there had been singing and dancing earlier in the morning, but we didn't arrive in time to see it (sorry Sandy Sparkle, I'm sure you were fabulous!). However, the DJ was still playing retro classics the whole time we were there and, although it wasn't really my kind of music, it did add to the atmosphere of the event and it was a nice touch.

After the fair we walked to the indoor market via the high street and saw something about Dinosaur World in vacant shop window on the way there:

Dinosaurs hiding in the windows!

At the indoor market, we headed for a burlesque-themed shop called Annie's Boutique. Despite its little size, it always has a good selection of gothic, rockabilly/psychobilly, burlesque and retro inspired items for sale, including dresses, skirts, jewellery, accessories, shoes, and corsets. According to the website, Annie also offers a free personal corset fitting service, but I haven't tried it out on the occasions I've visited the shop.

However, I did buy a fascinator and a rather lovely hat/hair pin:

You may have realised this by now, but I'm rather fond of costume jewellery. I much prefer things that I think look ornate and interesting as opposed to those that simply have monetary value. Not that I could afford those expensive ones even if I did want them, haha!

When we got back, my friend wanted to mess about taking some photos of me, so we did that. Those are all that're under the cut below, so feel free to skip them! ;D

The International Agatha Christie Festival - Exhibition & Vintage Fair at Torre Abbey

The town I live in happens to be the birthplace of Agatha Christie, who was known throughout the world for her novels, largely of the murder mystery genre. The author would have been 125 years old this year and, to mark the occasion, The International Agatha Christie Festival was (and still are) holding all sorts of events. Last Sunday (the 13th), at Torre Abbey, I went to see the Agatha Christie: Unfinished Portraits exhibition and also attended a vintage fair there, which was a collaboration between TIACF and Miss Ivy Events.

The exhibition was initially housed in London's Bankside Gallery on the South Bank, but moved down to Torre Abbey for the second half of its run, which is the 11th September - 18th October. The exhibition consisted of photographic portraits of Christie from birth all the way up until her death, with biographical information and diary excerpts included alongside them. In addition to that, there was a timeline of her books, and cases containing original letters, notebooks, and other items. Photos were not permitted inside the exhibit, for obvious reasons.

It was an enjoyable exhibition and I found Christie's musings about becoming an author particularly interesting. She said that she had first wanted to become a musician, but soon realised that she didn't have the talent for it and so eventually ended up writing because it was the thing that she was good at. Yet even when her books were selling well she still never considered herself to be a "professional".

Vintage cars on display

The vintage fair consisted of over 30 various stalls and stands both outdoors and within the walls of Torre Abbey. There were vintage and vintage-inspired clothes, accessories, homewares, crafts, food & drink on offer and it was a wonderful setting in which to wander around. There were so many beautiful treasures on display and I rather wish I'd had money the money with me to buy some of the gorgeous dresses and rings being offered!

Some of the stalls outside

Arches in the gardens

A view of the Abbey from outside

As we were already there, my friend and I decided to explore the gardens of Torre Abbey as well because they're quite lovely. In addition to the pretty gardens, we also discovered some sculptures, like these cows:

I saw some gorillas at Torre Abbey before, but I don't know where they moved onto... 

"The Rower" by Sharon Windebank, 2007

There were also little bits of garden planting that perhaps weren't really sculpture, but looked just as lovely.

Then we headed over to the greenhouse to take a look around. I took lots of photos of the plants inside, but I won't post those here.

...and caught a glimpse of this cute little fellow guarding the hosepipe:

We then found another sculpture hiding amongst the plants:

And, for our own ridiculous reasons, my friend made me take a photograph of this plant and sign:

It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon indeed!

Tomorrow, with any luck, we'll be off to another vintage fair, so there will be more fabulous things to see and do~